Derby v Boro 2-1 (Kebano)

[Denzel Zanzibar 6,972]

We're still higher in the table than we deserve to be. 

Said at the start of the season mid-table would be good for us and that's where we'll end up.

[DurhamRed 2,047]

Can't believe we are joint 7th the form we are on. Just hoping it ends at Huddersfield time to get back on the horse. But Huddersfield be hurting thrown away a 2 nil lead to Wycombe 

[Neverbefore 10,942]

At the start of the season I said 10th to 12th. Since then we've added watmore, bolasie, Mendez Laing, kebano and archer. At the time of signing those players we were 3 points off play offs. Those signings make this squad good enough for top 6 in my opinion.

 

I already said that finishing outside the play offs would be a failure given the expectations and goals set by our manager at the beginning of the season. Now that he has signed 11 players in 2 windows, it'll be an absolute disaster if we finish outside them. 

[sanddancer 1,967]

12 minutes ago, Neverbefore said:

At the start of the season I said 10th to 12th. Since then we've added watmore, bolasie, Mendez Laing, kebano and archer. At the time of signing those players we were 3 points off play offs. Those signings make this squad good enough for top 6 in my opinion.

 

I already said that finishing outside the play offs would be a failure given the expectations and goals set by our manager at the beginning of the season. Now that he has signed 11 players in 2 windows, it'll be an absolute disaster if we finish outside them. 

Very sim to my prediction and I full agree that now the squad has been improved expectations should be higher. The current form is abysmal and NW needs to explain why. 

[BillyWoofs_shinpad 1,884]

7 minutes ago, sanddancer said:

Very sim to my prediction and I full agree that now the squad has been improved expectations should be higher. The current form is abysmal and NW needs to explain why. 

It’s not his fault though, yesterday it was our strikers fault, they failed to convert all of those wonderful chances that our midfield created for them, if we’d have had the opposition’s striker we would have scored a hatful. 

[Snake 45]

17 hours ago, thomas said:

He might actually be the big problem at the back, when Dimi came in and playing in goal he gave us confidence and we stopped leaking goals at the back as the defenders knew he was a stable keeper. I wonder if we switch keeper to one that doesnt flap and makes decent saves if all of sudden them defenders start gaining confidence. 

That's exactly what would happen.

This clown we have now never gets his timing right - he's either too early or too slow going down for things, he can't seem to catch a ball even one into his midriff, never comes and collects a cross, doesn't dominate his 6 yard box, has no skills to distribute the ball other than a big hoof, has slow feet generally.

I actually think he just fell over trying to backpedal for their first yesterday!

Apart from that he's OK

 

 

[TLF10 4,497]

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/19089393.middlesbroughs-attacking-failings-exposed-derby-defeat/
 

interesting article in Echo. Not necessarily for its analysis as that is pretty obvious but some further quotes from Warnock after our game yesterday.

[DanFromDownSouth 1,706]

2 minutes ago, TLF10 said:

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/19089393.middlesbroughs-attacking-failings-exposed-derby-defeat/
 

interesting article in Echo. Not necessarily for its analysis as that is pretty obvious but some further quotes from Warnock after our game yesterday.

I notice he made a comment about the recruitment team not helping on the goalscoring front.

At what point does NW look at the tactics or set-up?

Is it after he's blamed the lack of wingers, or the fact he couldn't get another (different) striker in or is it after he's blamed the current strikers available?

[AnglianRed 6,320]

16 hours ago, Oslo_Syd said:

I would love to look forward to a Boro game confident in the belief that we will win. OK, nothing is written in tablets of stone, but I don’t think it’s unreasonable to think that if we play a team in the bottom half, we stand a halfway chance of winning.

But such is not the case with Boro, and it hasn’t been the case since the days of Karanka.

If your team loses, the first reaction, of course, is to look at the players. Actually, I don’t think we have bad players at all, on the whole – they are just not used to their best advantage. That has been a chronic problem since 2017 and it’s not going to get any better any quicker.

Since Karanka was booted out, we have been plugging gaps, and this has been mostly down to cash. Woodgate must be the ultimate example of that – bargain basement management that almost got us relegated. Warnock rescued us from that but surely nobody had any illusions about him being the messiah leading us to the promised land. I’m guessing, but his remit was probably to lead us to mid-table security, which he will probably do.  

As I see it, the future does not look rosy. Thanks to Brexit, Bulkhaul is probably experiencing major difficulties. If Gibson was reluctant to splash cash before, he will be even more shy about it now. But a major cash injection is what is needed. Somebody mentioned on this thread the difference that Bielsa made to Leeds. Check on their form before he arrived. Nothing to write home about. Now look at Bielsa’s record, and how Leeds have done since his appointment. He was the bloody manager of Argentina for six years! Do the maths.

We need a good manager with a different view on football. We need someone from left field who is a disruptive influence. We do not need tried-and-trusted, English, good-at-this-level stop gaps. I would far rather see money splashed on a good manager than on a hopefully prolific goalscorer.

Rant over. I will now retire to my place of darkness and not trouble you for a while.

I agree fully.

While you can say we may not have top quality players, the job of a manager and coaching staff is to train players, improve them and get them playing an effective (and hopefully entertaining) brand of football.

This wasn't such an issue during Boro's "Golden Era" as we could simply splash the cash on international quality players who needed very little coaching or on-pitch management.

In these cash-strapped times, a good manager and coaching staff are arguably the most important building blocks at the club. They are the places we should be spending decent money, to help develop a sound and consistent playing philosophy, which in turn will guide future player recruitment.

For one reason or another, Boro have consistently failed to make good appointments in these areas. Until we address this, the club is going to lurch from crisis to crisis and we're simply going to witness a stream of short-term managerial reigns, which may have a brief impact, but will ultimately quickly fizzle out.

 

[Dan_Boro_Till_I_Die 1,181]

And Mr Warnock you wanted Akpom didn't you? Or was it a case of make do? 2.5m absolutely wasted. 

 

I'm starting to get very irked with Warnock at the minute. The football is terrible and without results it's easier to notice . Anybody could improve on that shitshow Woodgate. 

[AnglianRed 6,320]

32 minutes ago, DanFromDownSouth said:

I notice he made a comment about the recruitment team not helping on the goalscoring front.

At what point does NW look at the tactics or set-up?

Is it after he's blamed the lack of wingers, or the fact he couldn't get another (different) striker in or is it after he's blamed the current strikers available?

Maybe the recruiting staff aren't very good. Maybe they're working with very strict limits thats making it hard to attract players...or maybe all the decent strikers really are tied up for the immediate future.

But anyway, as you say NW has to look at himself and the coaching staff and what they are asking the players to do.

For a long time now Boro haven't been a team known for having prolific strikers. We've been a team thats relied on players in all positions chipping in with goals. Heck even our centre-backs were known for weighing in with a few headers from corners.

This season Britt, Watmore, Saville, Akpom and Johnson have all scored a few. So we have players capable of finding the net. But lately we've become so poor, technically and tactically that barely anyone is even managing shots on target.

We ended up with nearly 60% possession against Derby, but managed just 2 shots on target all game and only 1 corner (in 87th minute).

Against Rotherham we had the majority of possession but managed just a single shot on target all game. Also had 7 corners, but failed to make anything of them.

This clearly is not a recipe for success and Warnock needs to take a long hard look at himself and reconsider how he sets the team up.

I was really chuffed at us landing some actual wingers on deadline day. They were supposed to finally create the supply line our strikers had been crying out for. Just hope Bolasie doesn't end up being one of those perennial injury cases who spends more time on the physio's table than the pitch.

 

[DanFromDownSouth 1,706]

2 minutes ago, AnglianRed said:

Maybe the recruiting staff aren't very good.

I'm not sure I buy this too much. This is the same recruitment team that plucked Dijksteel and Bola from relative obscurity, two of our better performing players this year. 

 

4 minutes ago, AnglianRed said:

But anyway, as you say NW has to look at himself and the coaching staff and what they are asking the players to do.

This is where the issue lies for me. You said it later on in your post, we simply don't create enough chances regularly.

Our strikers aren't the most clinical, so creating a handful of chances per game isn't always going to bring you success. When we do create chances they do appear to be getting into the right positions at least (thinking Britt and Saville vs Brentford).

[AnglianRed 6,320]

39 minutes ago, TLF10 said:

https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/sport/19089393.middlesbroughs-attacking-failings-exposed-derby-defeat/
 

interesting article in Echo. Not necessarily for its analysis as that is pretty obvious but some further quotes from Warnock after our game yesterday.

Well credit to NW - he clearly sees what the problem is:

 

“Up front, we were like a damp squib,” admitted Warnock. “There was nothing at all happening up front.

"It’s difficult. I thought we kept on trying and had a lot of possession. We made changes in the second half and I thought we dominated it, without really threatening".

 

Pretty good summation. Problem is, you're not going to threaten when most of your possession involves passing sideways and backwards. Or when our attacks are usually initiated by long balls to our forwards, or out wide, where they're usually intercepted, or go out of play. 

 

[TLF10 4,497]

54 minutes ago, DanFromDownSouth said:

I notice he made a comment about the recruitment team not helping on the goalscoring front.

At what point does NW look at the tactics or set-up?

Is it after he's blamed the lack of wingers, or the fact he couldn't get another (different) striker in or is it after he's blamed the current strikers available?

The comment he made about recruitment team I took aa him highlighting how difficult it is to find a good striker on a specific budget. However, you are right he could have meant it from angle you are looking at.

[DanFromDownSouth 1,706]

12 minutes ago, TLF10 said:

The comment he made about recruitment team I took aa him highlighting how difficult it is to find a good striker on a specific budget. However, you are right he could have meant it from angle you are looking at.

Don't get me wrong I think it is difficult to find a goalscorer at this level. What I think makes it even harder still is not having a consistent style to find strikers to fit that, but that's a whole other argument.

But it can be done, Armstrong, Joao, Moore, Pukki, Woodrow and Lowe have cost less than £10m combined (rough estimate), obviously wage demands are a factor to also consider. But I can't imagine Armstrong, Joao, Woodrow and Lowe being on anything close to Britt and I imagine they aren't far off what Akpom is being paid (pure guess).